Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Farrell, it is interesting you make that point, because of course we all know that close to 46 per cent of South Australians voted Liberal, compared with around 36 per cent voting for the Labor Party. In a two-party preferred sense 53 per cent of South Australians supported the formation of a Liberal government ahead of the formation of a Labor government.

In fact, Senator Farrell, even in Woomera, even in the township that we are talking about, there was very strong support for the election of a state Liberal government. At the Woomera booth, 52 per cent of people supported the election of a Liberal government—52 per cent on the primary vote. Just 32 per cent of people at the Woomera booth could bring themselves to vote for a Labor government. Translated to two-party preferred terms, some 58 per cent wanted the election of a Liberal government. So there was very strong support from the people in Woomera, in the region that we are talking about here.

That is a good demonstration. They were not fooled. They were not tricked. They were not conned by your tactics. They could see through the fact that you were just playing political games with legislation like this. They understood that having a Liberal government in South Australia, working with a coalition government here in Canberra, was not just the best way to rectify issues like this and provide policy settings that will allow for economic development in the future but the best way overall to ensure that we have sound economic settings that allow South Australia and Australia to regain a competitive footing in the future.

The truth is we can open up the Woomera protected area further. We can make it easier for the resources and energy sector to get in there, coexist with Defence and explore and potentially develop assets. But, if the cost basis for doing so does not stack up, we will never see any of it happen anyway. The Labor Party of Jay Weatherill in South Australia and the Labor Party here remain committed to making it uneconomical for the type of resources development that we would like to see in Woomera to go ahead. Their commitment to maintaining the carbon tax, their commitment to maintaining the mining tax, their commitment to maintaining reams of regulation and their commitment to a high-cost economy and a big-spending government is such that, of course, it would not matter if this legislation passes or not. If they had their way, we would not see any economic development or activity in these areas, any more than we would anywhere else around Australia.

We have the opportunity, should a Liberal government still be formed in South Australia, to have two governments working on the same track of reducing the cost of doing business, of reducing the level of business taxes. The government here wants to get rid of the carbon tax, the mining tax—taxes that make mining, development and exploration in South Australia and across Australia more expensive. We have a Liberal Party in South Australia with a clear majority of the state-wide vote who went to the election with clear policies to reduce land tax and payroll tax and to actually make it more competitive as a place to do business.

The great problem South Australia faces is a dire, dire economic outlook. The Deloitte Access Economics report released last year placed South Australia's economic prospects last of all of the states—dead last. Usually South Australia, sadly, in recent years has battled it out with Tasmania for bottom place. Sadly for Tasmania, more often than not on economic indicators like unemployment it has come last and South Australia second to last. But in fact in terms of economic outlook, looking to the future, what the independent economics commentators have said is that South Australia's outlook is even worse than Tasmania's. Tasmania, we know, fortunately and thoughtfully elected, with a comfortable majority, a Liberal government on the weekend. So I am sure their economic outlook, already better than South Australia's, will now surge ahead with a government that is committed to stripping costs and red tape out of the Tasmanian economy.

I know that Senator Bushby, who worked so hard to help get a Hodgman government elected there, will be helping them ensure that their policies are complementary to those of the federal government in Canberra and that we do everything possible to make the Tasmanian economy a success again. South Australia needs that same opportunity. I hope that Mr Brock and Dr Such, if the power ultimately falls into their hands, recognise that the majority of South Australians wanted change at the weekend and that they recognise that Steven Marshall and his Liberal team offered policies that would make South Australia, again, a more attractive place in which to invest.